North Kansas City Schools outlines multi‑phase staffing plan to address turnover, special education and ELL needs
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Summary
Superintendent Dr. Johnson presented a four‑phase comprehensive staffing plan focused on position control, consistent site staffing rules, special education restructures and expanded ELL services. The district will finalize weighted staffing triggers and a revised classified salary schedule for phased implementation.
Dr. Johnson, superintendent of North Kansas City Schools, told the board Jan. 13 that the district is advancing a multi‑phase comprehensive staffing plan to make staffing allocations more predictable, equitable and responsive to student needs.
The plan — presented as an overview in advance of deeper work at an upcoming retreat — centers on data collection and analysis, simulation of staffing models, formal proposal development, and subsequent implementation and evaluation. Dr. Johnson said the goal is to replace ad hoc, site‑level requests with a district‑level staffing manual and weighted allocation rules based on enrollment and student need.
"We don't want odds to be in people's favor," Dr. Johnson said, invoking a metaphor to emphasize the desire for a predictable, transparent process. He described four focus areas for 2025–26: evaluating the district's position‑control system; formalizing enrollment‑ and equity‑based variables that inform site staffing; restructuring parts of special education to reduce teacher caseload strain; and expanding ELL organizational capacity and access.
Among the staffing‑management steps described, the district has contracted Educational Management Solutions (EMS) to analyze more than 500 job titles, revise job descriptions, consolidate roles where appropriate, and support development of a market‑competitive classified salary schedule intended to provide clearer entry and progression points for paraprofessionals and other classified staff. "This allows us to connect positions to budgets and career pathways rather than tracking only people," Dr. Johnson said.
On site allocations, the administration showed examples of enrollment‑based triggers (for principals, assistant principals and administrative assistants) and a point‑based equity model that assigns extra staff when a school crosses thresholds such as Title I status, higher free‑and‑reduced‑lunch rates, elevated mobility, higher special‑education percentages or larger newcomer ELL counts. The presenter said the district is still fine‑tuning weights for each position type.
Dr. Johnson and Tony Cook (special education leader) laid out special‑education trends: the district currently serves 2,806 students with individualized education programs (about 15% of enrollment), up roughly 500 students since 2020, with several program lines — including autism (referred to in the presentation as FIT or Foundations of Intensive Teaching) — projected to grow further. The administration proposed adding classrooms and paraprofessionals and restructuring administrative supports to reduce average teacher caseloads and burnout.
On multilingual students, the presentation said about 1,800 students qualify for ELL services, representing more than 100 languages districtwide and roughly 22% of district families identified as multilingual. The administration recommended expanding ELL services to additional schools, restructuring the ELL administrative team (director + coordinator + TLC) and applying weighted caseloads tied to WIDA proficiency bands (newcomers receive higher weighting).
The district outlined next steps: finalize weighted variables for equity positions, work with finance to cost a prioritized, multi‑year implementation, publish a comprehensive staffing manual and propose a revised classified salary schedule for board consideration by the end of the school year. Dr. Johnson said proposed allocations will feed the 2027 FTE request process and that the team will return with simulations and cost estimates.
Board members praised the work, asked questions about definitional points and timelines, and requested follow‑up on overlaps between ELL and special‑education counts; Dr. Johnson committed to providing the overlap data and further detail at the retreat and in a Friday follow‑up session. The presentation concluded with the board expressing broad support for continued refinement and attention to staff well‑being.
The board moved on to committee reports and other business following the presentation.